Tales From Winter

Chestita Baba Marta everybody! That is the traditional greeting given to your fellow Bulgarians on the First of March. After giving the greeting, friends take red and white bracelets, necklaces, or pendants called ‘martenitsis’ and attach them on one another. After a day on campus everybody is festooned with dashes of red and white all over their bodies. The idea is that by wearing these items your March will be a happy and lucky time for you. As Spring rushes into the world you are supposed to keep on the lookout for the “stork,” the Bulgarski version of our swallow. Upon seeing the stork you tie your martenitsis on trees that show budding leaves or place them under rocks. If you see ants crawling about then good luck will continue to befall you throughout the year. Sounds fun and entertaining, although I’m told that the bracelets start to smell pretty funky after a month of wear.

So yeah, I know, it’s been awhile since I updated my blog. Don't worry, I haven't been eaten by a pack of feral dogs. Probably a couple reasons for the delay; the first being an overall lack of adventures. The winter over here has been rather weak, I have only clocked eight days up on my snowboard thus far, with the first being on Jan. 30^th! Gordon and I got up yesterday during school but the conditions were pretty crappy. So instead of buying a lift ticket we just hiked up the hill for awhile, concentrating on exercise rather than the number of turns. The weather was fairly warm and sunny, but really windy farther up the mountain. Most of the lifts were closed due to the wind but as the ski lifts on Vitosha mountain are all owned by different groups one cannot just buy one ticket for all the lifts. Each lift charges about 22 leva for a day – about 13 dollars. We ended up leaving early and back down in town I was treated to the most disgusting Bulgarian meal I’ve had up to date… chicken liver and onions. Ick! It’s always an adventure eating out at some of these places because still, after all this time, my command of the language and it’s Cyrillic alphabet leaves much to be desired.

That’s not to say that Bulgarian food is typically bad, quite the opposite really. They tend to go for grilled meats precluded by salads of tomato, cucumber, and goat cheese. They are also big on baked potato casseroles with all kinds of goodies mixed in. You can get a three course meal with lots of beer for about six to eight dollars. Cannot forget about the pizza either, there is lots of it, even if it is Bulgarian fashion, i.e. with corn, pickles, ham, smoked chicken, and crazy cheese.

I have had a couple good days on up in the mountains too. About three weeks ago Greg and I teamed up with two of his Bulgarian buddies and went south to Borovetz. This mountain was the real deal, had to take a gondola ride up to the base lifts. It had snowed about twenty centimeters over night so the snow was verrrry nice… Bulgarians still have something to learn about powder skiing though, most of the people on the slopes stick to the on-piste runs, leaving the trees and side glades to those willing to go looking for it. I had some of my best tree riding ever that day. As far as I’m concerned they can stay on the marked trails, they tend to ski like they drive anyhow – reckless and with high speed. My first day at Vitosha I saw two collisions and a loose snowboard rocket down the slope. They obviously don’t know about leashes either.

Other than waiting for the snow I have pretty much been spending my time hanging out around campus. Between the beer drinking, writing, and playing music I actually spend a little time working. This week coming up it seems I'm responsible for copying all the parts to the ACS entrance exam. The whole process is very secretive due to the amount of kids taking the test. I have to do it after school all of next week, and if I was more corrupt, could probably make a side profit on selling copies...

As far as the beer drinking goes we kicked off the New Year in spectacular fashion about a month ago when six dudes from the school went out on a boy’s weekend. Our target was the historical town of Veliko Turnavo. The town is famous as it was the original capital of the country, nestled into the northern mountains and surrounded by two rivers. A decent sized fortress crowned a ridge running through town. Its origins were Roman but since then it has been razed, rebuilt, only to be sacked again. Currently only one wall remained along with towers and battlements inside.

From left to right: Y.T., Pete, Derek, Dave, Cooper, and Djorf. Yeah, Veliko was a fun town, even if my memories of it are kind of foggy. We stayed in a cool little apartment with three rooms, a kitchen and balcony. After a fair amount of Texas Hold 'Em and Jager induced prefunk we hit the town for the usual Bulgarski style revelry. During the following day our hungover souls made their way into a bowling alley where we commenced to roll for over six hours. Bowling has turned out to be the new campus sport, we probably hit the lanes at least once a week. I actually rolled a new personal best of 160 just the other night. After grubbing some pizza we headed back to the apartment, lacking both the energy and will to tackle the club scene for a consecutive night.
The next day we had a fair amount of time to bum around town before catching the bus back to Sofia. It was here that I took the majority of my photos but I still came away with the lesson that alcohol and photography are not the best of friends.
Several weeks passed as the snow slowly came. Boredom was alleviated by writing, snowboarding and throwing campus parties like this one. The theme was “pink and black” – named after the house in which it was thrown, Pink House. I borrowed the pink scarf and bow tie from one of the students in my drumming club.

Lost At Sea With Richard Parker
is:
Aaron, Dan, Greg

Major bashes since then have included a rakia tasting party. Rakia is the local firewater, a crazy high octane mix of plum brandies. My band hauled the music gear up to the house and jammed for a little while during the festivities. Next came our president’s 60^th birthday party, just last Friday. He has a nice pool table in his basement and I found myself in pitched battles for control with the other dudes. This coming Friday the house closet to the dorm, Frat House, is throwing their annual St. Patrick’s Day rager. Am looking forward to it, hopefully the weather will cooperate so my band will be able to play outside by the bonfire.

About two weeks ago I got a chance to go with Cooper’s hiking club. We left early in the morning on a train to a place called Lakatnik. The surrounding geology was really astounding. It was a huge valley carved down through tiered sedimentary cliffs. Check out the pics in the photo gallery to see what I mean. One of the teachers that went had got several of her friends who are professional mountaineering guides to lead us up through the cliffs. Eventually we arrived at the mouth of a huge cave. They led all 33 students and 8 teachers into the deep dark. The cave wasn’t very tight, just some slippery places here and there. It was basically a long cavern with stalactites and bats hanging from the vaulted ceiling at regular intervals.

My last couple of trips up to Vitosha Mountain has been with Gordon where we have been supplementing our workouts by hiking up the mountain side instead of riding chair lifts. We gain at least five thousand feet in the gondola before we even begin to hike so the workout is good for starving our lungs of oxygen and driving pain into our legs. Our last time up there we came upon these snowboards working this huge kicker over and over. Gordon used to ride semi-pro in big air competitions so he immediately started salivating. But since breaking his back seven years ago what he can do is limited. But like all of the crazy extreme sports athletes I’ve met, he decided to throw caution to the wind and give it a go. I went down with my camera gear to the lip of the jump and took many shots of both him and the other riders throwing their bodies into the air. I’ve never really experienced photography like this before and I’ll have to admit it was pretty fun. Framing ahead of time, setting focus, and grinding out multiple shots with my 5 frames per second motor drive. It his here that digital kicks ass, other than having hundreds of images to go through, which is both a blessing and a pain.

Here's Gordon getting some hang time. Check out the gallery for some more of the better shots.

Last Saturday five of us drove the school’s van up to the mountain instead of taking the gondola. They were having a boarder cross competition so we decided to check it out. The light was horrendous so I didn’t do much shooting but enjoyed the show none the less.

I'm still progressing on a short novel that I've been putting together since October. It is a work of science fiction and the surfing world involved at that time in the future. Several campus residents have been kind in helping with editing. Hopefully I'll have a rough manuscript finished by the time I return.

I've also started helping Djorf out with his drama production of Dracula by designing, and with the help to two other teachers, will be coordinating the building and painting of the set pieces. The show will kick off the first weekend of May so we still have a bit of time to get everything in order. Should be fun, even though a little stressful.

Well, the next big step is going to be spring break. I'm heading to Spain for twelve days. The plan includes a car, a surfboard, and a camera. Gonna try to beach camp and spend as much time in the water as possible. Gordon and I have been hitting the weights pretty hard the past month so hopefully my arms won't fall off after the second day. The Catholics decided to celebrate Easter week while I'm going to be there so I'll have a heap of crowds and crazy people to deal with so... we'll see.
After that I have a short weekend that I might use to head over to Italy. Then it's only a matter of time before my folks show up to get their exclusive Bulgarian tour. After they leave at the end of May I only have three more weeks on the contract before I can bug out. I'm looking into a three week Western Europe trip before heading back to Entiat and it's world famous fire crew.

Remember to check out the photo gallery. I'm going to try to get more, but shorter, updates on the blog on a more regular basis. Stay tuned for more.